So I just replaced my motherboard and XP loads. The thing is, since it's been a month since I've used my comp, I've forgotten my password! Using a little utility I have, it appears that my administrator account has not got a password. It's only my own that does. But on the main welcome screen, only the option to login as myself exists. How do I get into administrator?

First, do you mean bootup admin (for BIOS) or main computer admin account? If you mean main computer admin account, I would hope your only account would be an admin already.

If not, go into control panel -> user accounts. If an administrator account exists, it should be in there. Of course to modify anything, you probably have to be an administrator (but I'm guessing you already are and don't realize it).

You need to boot Windows into safe mode. During the boot cycle which is before Windows starts loading press the F8 several times. You want to do this as the bios is booting up and before the XP logo comes up. Choose the safe mode option. Once safe mode boots up you'll see both your XP account and an Admin accout.

So I just replaced my motherboard and XP loads. The thing is, since it's been a month since I've used my comp, I've forgotten my password! Using a little utility I have, it appears that my administrator account has not got a password. It's only my own that does. But on the main welcome screen, only the option to login as myself exists. How do I get into administrator?

It's even worse on a mac, at least I haven't seen any crack CDs for OSX when one of the macs at work had a lost administrator account. I usually keep my Windows ******* CD somewhat handy. The general computer rule is once physical security is broken, nothing is gaurenteed, regardless of the OS.

Time to bust out the OSX CD. D:

Mac is okay, I perfer to go free Linux if I wanted Unix (and well, Apple seems to hide most of the ability to get to the Unix underlying core), and frankly their "get a Mac" attitude is annoying and elitist.

Mac is okay, I perfer to go free Linux if I wanted Unix (and well, Apple seems to hide most of the ability to get to the Unix underlying core), and frankly their "get a Mac" attitude is annoying and elitist.

Hmm, you can open up the Terminal shell and have every single UNIX command available in the BSD guts of OSX. You can also boot-up in single-user mode, but will still need the superuser password to monkey around with the system. Remember that LINUX is not UNIX. Personally I'd go with FreeBSD or Solaris.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phantomcow2

So I just replaced my motherboard and XP loads. The thing is, since it's been a month since I've used my comp, I've forgotten my password! Using a little utility I have, it appears that my administrator account has not got a password. It's only my own that does. But on the main welcome screen, only the option to login as myself exists. How do I get into administrator?

Hmm, you can open up the Terminal shell and have every single UNIX command available in the BSD guts of OSX. You can also boot-up in single-user mode, but will still need the superuser password to monkey around with the system. Remember that LINUX is not UNIX. Personally I'd go with FreeBSD or Solaris.

I forget which commands, but there were a handful of Unix commands we went over in our computer science class a couple years ago that for some reason I couldn't get OSX to do in the terminal. After talking to a lot of Apple owners apparently some commands were remapped for some reason. *shrugs*

Linux follows Unix commands and some DOS commands, which is kind of awkward because you get use to using non-Unix commands mixed with true unix commands, and forget about using ls and such when you're use to using dir.